Friday, February 5, 2016

Sales volumes in January tend to be lower than most months of the year, and as such, a single comic book can make a huge difference. Particularly when that comic book was the best-selling one in more than twenty years—asStar Wars #1 was, last January. Comic shop orders for comic books, graphic novels, and magazines in January 2016 were off 5% versus a year before according to Diamond Comic Distributors — but if Star Wars #1 hadn't been in the mix in January 2015, sales would have been up 7%!

In truth, the market may really be slightly down, flat, or evenslightly up this month, because Star Wars #1's sales included a lot of copies that went to Loot Crate, where Diamond was simply passing along the books; they shouldn't really have counted toward the industry's dollar sales, but there's no way to easily excise them. But we know that retailers placed orders worth approximately $41.52 million last month, off about $2.2 million — and sources suggest Loot Crate's order could have accounted for 400,000 copies or more. Figuring at $4.99 per issue, that's at least $2 million right there.

And unit sales for comic books, off 4.09% for the month, are almost certainly up if you remove the Loot Crate Star Wars copies. So accounting for the accounting, so to speak, the message of the month is somewhat more positive than the numbers below suggest:

DOLLARS

UNITS

JANUARY 2016 VS. DECEMBER 2015

Comics

-25.19%

-21.25%

Graphic Novels

-11.81%

-6.73%

Total Comics/GNs

-21.52%

-20.31%

JANUARY 2016 VS. JANUARY 2015

Comics

-3.86%

-4.09%

Graphic Novels

-7.77%

-9.65%

Total Comics/GNs

-5.10%

-4.54%

It's also worth noting that Dark Knight IIItook a break in January, to return with the third issue Feb. 24. Both this January and last January had four shipping weeks, so there's at least a direct comparison there.

Regardless, remember our usual caveat: volumes in the first quarter are lower, and a modestly off January (which this one might not have really been!) can be erased by an October that's even slightly up.

A pair of Star Wars graphic novels topped the book charts for the month, a list dominated by Marvel:

Top-sellling graphic novels

GRAPHIC NOVEL

PRICE

VENDOR

1

Star
Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 2: Shadows and Secrets

$19.99

Marvel

2

Star
Wars Vol. 2: Showdown on the Smugglers' Moon

$19.99

Marvel

3

Color
Your Own Deadpool

$9.99

Marvel

4

Death
Of Wolverine

$19.99

Marvel

5

Star
Wars: Lando

$16.99

Marvel

6

Deadpool's
Secret Secret Wars

$15.99

Marvel

7

Invader
Zim Volume 1

$19.99

Oni

8

Thor
Volume 1: Goddess of Thunder

$19.99

Marvel

9

Star
Wars: Darth Vader Volume 1: Vader

$19.99

Marvel

10

Civil
War

$24.99

Marvel

The market shares found the same top five atop both charts:

DOLLAR MARKET SHARE

UNIT MARKET SHARE

Marvel

44.38%

Marvel

48.17%

DC

22.16%

DC

24.02%

Image

9.67%

Image

10.99%

IDW

4.11%

IDW

3.48%

Dark Horse

3.06%

Dark
Horse

2.51%

Eaglemoss

2.26%

Boom

1.89%

Boom

1.98%

Titan

1.02%

Viz

1.18%

Valiant

0.98%

Titan

1.15%

Dynamite

0.92%

Dynamite

1.15%

Oni

0.78%

Other

8.89%

Other

5.24%

And, finally, the lower volume of new releases we always see in January. Full estimates out next week.

PUBLISHER

COMICS SHIPPED

GRAPHIC NOVELS
SHIPPED

MAGAZINES SHIPPED

TOTAL SHIPPED

Marvel

94

37

0

131

DC

77

21

0

98

Image

58

11

0

69

IDW

37

15

0

52

Dark Horse

34

12

0

46

Viz

0

40

0

40

Boom

22

12

0

34

Eaglemoss

0

0

30

30

Titan

14

6

3

23

Dynamite

10

5

0

15

Other

104

110

26

240

TOTAL

450

269

59

778

Comichron.com curator John Jackson Miller
has tracked the comics industry for more than 20 years, including a
decade editing the industry's retail trade magazine; he is the author of
several guides to comics, as well as more than a hundred comic books
for various franchises.

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